I was making a mousetrap, so needed a mouse. And needed a mouse quickly. So this is not a high detailed model. Just a model of a mouse that you can model in less than an hour. And do not put camera closer than 20 inches or half a meter.

Modelling Process

To model Mouse I use 3DStudioMax 3.0. Modelingtechnique is polymodeling. I start with importing a reference images to right or left view as background image. And when you importing image as background always choose "fit image".

Start by making a box. Convert it in Editable Mash and go in to the vertex Sub Object mode. Now hit the Create button, and in front or back view create two half circles. Vertexes at the left should have the same value of x coordinate. It would be nice that the value of x is 0.0, but any other will do. And it's important to move those vertexes only by y and z axes.

Smaller half circle will be end of nose, and bigger half circle will be end of head, so move them to fit those positions.

Now to create something visible.

It's time to create faces. Activate the Polygon mode under Sub Objects, and hit create button. It's faster that way, because when you create one polygon you crated two faces. On image below you can clearly see how one polygon is divided in two faces. You need 4 vertexes to create this face . And it's important to create faces by selecting vertexes in aright direction.

When you create mesh.. It's always visible from just one side. And that side should face you. That is way you need to use a right direction when creating faces.

Fig. 05

Create polygons until you have something that looks like one half of cylinder. Use mirror button to create instance clone of that object. Now every change you make on original is seen on clone object too. The work is cut to half.

At this time you can select the box from the start and delete it. It was just a help for creating vertexes at the start.

Now we have something that should be the head of the mouse. Need a rest of the body. That means we need more faces. These faces will be created in Edge mode. Select the edges that should be at the end of the head. Press and hold shift button and move edges by y axes. You are now cloning edges.

New edges will not fit the body of the mouse at first but use a vertex mode to move vertexes and fit it aright. You can use a Non-uniform Scale but I find moving vertexes more accurate and easy.

By repeating last two steps create the main form of the mouse body.

See how the body is all sharp and squarely. Now we are trying to have as less vertexes as we can, to make model simpler and easier to work with. Later we will apply a Mesh Smooth modifier and get a nice smooth mouse.

The main form of the body is done. Lets make an end of the nose. Select edges at the end of the nose and with holding shift extrude them. Now try to move vertexes almost in one point, and weld them to get just one vertex. For welding value I use 1.0.

Now the same as nose we have to make tail, but extrude edges a few times more to get that curve in tail shape. At the end weld vertexes in one.

Of course you could apply Mesh Smooth modifier now to see how the model is going

Do not remove Mesh Smooth modifier, work in Editable Mash and use Show end result button to see smooth model